Source: BBC NewsEgypt unveils nuclear power plan
Egypt is to revive the civilian nuclear power programme it froze 20 years ago following the accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.
Egypt's energy minister told the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper of plans to build a nuclear power station.
The plant will be constructed at El-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast, within the next 10 years.
Demand for electricity has been growing at an average rate of 7% a year and the country faces worsening shortages.
On Thursday, President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt needed to investigate new sources of energy, including the nuclear option.
Energy Minister Hassan Younes said that the project would create a fully functioning nuclear power plant within a decade.
The facility, a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant, is expected to cost an estimated US$1.5bn (1.17bn euros). The Cairo government says it will seek foreign investment for the project.
IAEA questions
Though it abandoned a serious nuclear energy programme two decades ago, Egypt maintains a small experimental nuclear reactor.
In February 2005 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed that it was investigating Egypt's nuclear activities.
It concluded that Egypt had conducted atomic research, but that the research did not aim to develop nuclear weapons and did not include uranium enrichment.
Egypt admitted to failing to disclose the full extent of its nuclear research activities to the UN's watchdog. Officials said the failure arose because of a misunderstanding over exactly what had to be disclosed.
NPT signatory
Egypt is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows countries to build nuclear power stations under international supervision.
It has long pressed for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.
Israel is the only state in the region with a known nuclear arsenal, though it maintains a position of "ambiguity" on its nuclear weapons, insisting that it will not be the first state to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.
Iran is in dispute with the IAEA and the Security Council over its nuclear programme.
Tehran insists its programme is peaceful, but western states believe Iran secretly wants to develop either a nuclear bomb or the ability to make one. The Security Council is demanding that Tehran halt nuclear enrichment, a step Iran is refusing to comply with.
Source: Al-Masry Al-YoumDabaa nuclear power sit-in continues in wake of clashes
Sat, 14/01/2012 - 10:40
Residents of Dabaa, where Egypt’s nuclear power project is under construction, continued their sit-in on Saturday after clashes with Egyptian military police on Friday.
The clashes left 41 people injured, including 29 soldiers, according to state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram.
On Friday, about 500 residents had rallied demanding the dismantlement of the nuclear power plant, saying their lands were confiscated to make room for it. They say the government did not give them compensation for the land.
Taha Mohamed Al-Sayed, governor of Matrouh, had held an urgent meeting with protestors' representatives, calling on them to exercise self-restraint.
The governor was quoted by MENA as telling the protestors that the army will not attack them. Al-Sayed ordered police to secure the plant's gates.
Egypt's electricity minister said in March that the country would go ahead with the tender for the plant's construction after the popular uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Soldiers and protesters hurled stones at each other and exchanged gunfire after the protesters demolished a wall surrounding the site, a security source and witnesses said.
ثلاثة عشر خبيرًا نوويًا يستعدون للسفر لكوريا للتدريب على دورة وقود وتشغيل المحطات
14-1-2012 | 13:59
تستعد البعثة الثانية من كوادر الأمان النووى المصرى للسفر إلي العاصمة الكورية (سول ) فى زيارة تستغرق أسبوعين اعتبارا من 29 من الشهر الجارى وذلك في إطار التعاون الفني بين مركز الأمان النووي المصري،وهيئة الرقابة النووية فى كوريا الجنوبية.
وكشف مصدر مسئول بوزارة الكهرباء أن الوفد المصري يضم 13 خبيرا للتدريب لمده 15 يوما في كوريا علي عده مجالات تتعلق بالمحطات النووية، وتشمل التدريب علي وتصميم المفاعلات النووية وجودة المحطات إلى جانب التدريب على تركيب وتشغيل أبراج التبريد فى المحطات ودوره الوقود وصيانة وتشغيل المحطات النووية
كما سيقوم الوفد المصرى بزيارات ميدانية لعدد من المحطات النووية الكورية لافتا النظر إلي أن هذه الزيارة تأتي في إطار بروتوكول التعاون بين الأمان النووي المصري وهيئة التعاون الدولي الكورية.
وكانت الدفعة الأولى من كوادر الأمان النووى المصرى قد انهت برنامجها التدريبى فى كوريا نهاية نوفبرالماضى وضمت 12 خبيرا نوويا حيث تم التدريب لمد 15 يوما على المواقع النووية للمحطات وتأكيد جودة إنشائها إلي جانب التدريب علي مجالات الضمانات والحماية المادية للمحطات النووية.
Residents of Dabaa, where Egypt’s nuclear power project is under construction
That indicates that the plant is under construction and that the building has gates already.Al-Sayed ordered police to secure the plant's gates.
(Reuters) - Radioactive material has been stolen from a nuclear power station on Egypt's Mediterranean coast that was the scene of violent protests last week, the state-run al-Ahram newspaper reported on Thursday.
A safe containing radioactive material at the Dabaa nuclear power plant, which is still under construction, was seized while another also containing radioactive material was broken open and part of its contents taken, the newspaper said.
In Vienna, an official of the U.N. nuclear agency described the items missing as "low-level radioactive sources" which had been taken from a laboratory at the construction site. He could not give any details on the nature of the stolen items.
"We are in touch with the Egyptian authorities," the official from the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
Al-Ahram said the government has alerted security authorities and asked that specialized teams help in the search for the stolen material.
More than a dozen people were wounded last week when military police tried to disperse hundreds of Egyptian protesters demanding the relocation of the Dabaa plant.
Plant staff have refused to go to the site because of the deterioration in the security situation there, al-Ahram said.
About 500 Egyptians rallied in front of the plant last week to demand that the project be terminated, with some saying they had lost their land on the site.
Soldiers and the demonstrators threw stones at each other and exchanged gunfire after the protesters demolished a wall surrounding the site, a security source and witnesses said.
(Reporting by Patrick Werr; additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; editing by David Stamp)